Painting A Canvas: A Fun Preschool or Kindergarten Activity

Rachel Peachey
December 18, 2017
Crafting / Education

This is a quick and practical post about a fun activity we enjoyed recently on our trip to the USA (we live full-time in Guatemala). Hope you get some artsy inspiration!

In rummaging through things I still have at my parent’s house, I came across a large canvas. Years ago I had good intentions of painting it. But, with two little ones, I haven’t had time to dedicate to painting. So, I thought, “let’s paint together!”

Here’s how you can easily and successfully paint a canvas, even with young kids!

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DIY Stamps for Kids: Ideal for Busy Bags and Quiet Time

Rachel Peachey
January 16, 2017
Crafting / Education

Kids love stamps. There’s something so satisfying about creating a perfect drawing on paper using stamps. They can be combined to create something fantastic and unique. Somehow, kids never grow bored using stamps.

It’s hard to find regular old stamps around here (in Guatemala). Most of them are made for teachers and have something like “Excelente!” written on them. So, I decided to put together some DIY stamps for kids…specifically for Peanut with some of his favorite things. I put them together for his birthday. He was thrilled!

These DIY stamps for kids are ideal for throwing into a busy bag for church, a meeting or long car ride. You could also break them out when you need a bit of quiet time at home. Peanut loved getting these out while his sister was napping – which was perfect timing. He was quietly busy, and his sister didn’t get in his way trying to ~~destroy~~ play with them as well.

How did I do it?

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A DIY Magnet Busy Board For Story Telling Fun

Rachel Peachey
January 3, 2017
Crafting

One of our favorite activities with the kids is making up stories, retelling stories and just general fun playing pretend. We often find ourselves using props such as model dinosaurs, cars, blocks to build houses, castles and bridges and dishes for making food. When we made our Clifford story retelling puppets we had such a blast I knew we had to come up with another story telling tool. So, I give you our very own DIY Magnet Busy Board for Story Telling Fun!

A DIY Magnet Busy Board For Story Telling Fun — Pin it!

Story retelling and story telling is such an important skill for little ones! It improves their reading comprehension, promotes a greater understanding of sequencing and increases creativity and vocabulary. You can’t go wrong spending time story telling with your little ones.

Our DIY magnet busy board was fun and easy to make, and we did it with a few extras we had lying around. All we had to purchase was some spray paint and magnet strip. Follow the steps below to make your very own.

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An Advent Calendar for Kids PLUS Activities

Rachel Peachey
November 23, 2016
Blog / Crafting

One of my parenting goals this year is to teach my oldest about advent. What better way than through an advent calendar for kids plus daily activities? The combination of reading a bible verse and doing some fun holiday activities such as making decorations, baking cookies and setting up the nativity scene not only teaches about the meaning of Christmas, but will also bring us closer together as a family.

Make Your Own Advent Calendar for Kids

We had lots of fun making the advent calendar together. The basic idea of this calendar is that each day we’ll break open one of the numbers. This is very appealing to Peanut…he can’t wait to punch through the paper to see what’s inside! I also find it quite tempting, I must admit. Inside are 2 slips of paper, one is a Bible verse and one is an advent activity, and a small piece of candy for each of my kids.

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Thanksgiving Stencil Painting – A Sensorial Activity {Free Printable}

Rachel Peachey
November 7, 2016
Crafting

Paint + homemade paintbrushes + stencils + 2 kids = FUN! and some lovely Thanksgiving stencil painting art!

Because painting is so much fun, I decided to focus our Thanksgiving craft on using some simple stencils. I drew some simple designs, a pumpkin, two leaf shapes and a turkey of course. So, ready to have fun? Here’s how you can repeat this Thanksgiving stencil painting activity with your own little ones.

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Top 5 Thanksgiving Crafts to Do with Your Kids

Rachel Peachey
November 4, 2016
Crafting / Education

Crafting and food are the two most essential pieces of holidays for me. Without crafts and decorations, I can’t quite get in the mood. And food, well, I think that goes without saying! Since our family lives in Guatemala, I have to double up the Thanksgiving celebrations and crafting efforts because I’m the only one who celebrates it! So each year I push forward, make a big meal, do Thanksgiving crafts and decorate to spread the festive feeling to our extended family.

I’ve scoured the internet and Pinterest for some new Thanksgiving crafts to add this year. Since Peanut is 3 now, he’s getting pretty handy with crafts and seems to enjoy them quite a bit! The challenge is now to keep my 1-year-old baby girl from destroying everything. She’s getting quite handy with scribbling now, so hopefully the new crayons we bought will keep her busy.

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A Dinosaur Quiet Book for Peanut

Rachel Peachey
November 1, 2016
Crafting

Peanut has a ~~small~~ BIG obsession with dinosaurs. We have lots of little model dinosaurs around the house as well as some skeleton models we’ve put together. Don’t even get me started on the number of dinosaur books we have. It’s an impressive collection for a 3-year-old.

So, when thinking about creating a quiet book for Peanut, the obvious theme was dinosaurs. Roar! I hope you enjoy seeing what I came up with! It was a lot of fun, and took FOREVER to finish. I started the book just before my daughter was born and didn’t finish it until much after…like at least 6 months later.

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A Quiet Book for Aby

Rachel Peachey
October 5, 2016
Crafting

When Aby turned 1, I wanted to give her something special. So, I created a small quiet book for her. I wanted it to be simple, but also involve manipulation…